Guns

The Constitution is not unclear: "The Right of the People, to Keep and Bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

For those to whom it seems unclear: The "militia clause" is a dependent clause. It is a reason for, not a limitation on, the recognition of the right. The Second Amendment outlines no exceptions to, or limitations on, that right ... and so, no such exceptions or limitations are or can be legal. Furthermore, as it is explicitly enumerated as a right "of the people," the prohibition on violating it logically extends to the state governments as well. It is, as the Tenth Amendment says, "reserved," and not to the states.

Now that we've had our little history lesson, let's talk about why the Framers were right to enshrine the right to keep and bear arms in our Constitution.

"Gun control" -- or, as L. Neil Smith more accurately names it, "victim disarmament" -- is not an answer to crime. One does not attack the car when a drunk driver kills an innocent victim. The individual, not the object, is responsible for the crime. And it is the individual, not the object, who should face the wrath of society.

"Gun control" is just another shallow, quick fix invented by political hacks. Sadly, many well-intentioned folks have been swept along in the mistaken belief that banning weapons somehow reduces crime. On the contrary -- our experience has taught us that the more draconian a polity's "gun control" schemes are, the higher its rate of violent crime goes. If you want safer streets, then we have to go to the core of violence in America. Guns are tools, not causes.

Of course, the Framers didn't really have crime in mind when they wrote recognition of the right to keep and bear arms into the Constitution. What they had in mind was that their fellow citizens had just defeated the mightiest armed power on earth -- the British Empire -- largely using their own privately acquired weapons, and that there would doubtless be similar future situations in which the people's last, just resort to settle grievances with their government would be to once again take up arms.

A government that doesn't trust its people with guns doesn't trust its people, period -- nor does it deserve to be trusted by its people. If elected president, I will do my utmost to restore trust on both sides.

• I'll oppose any new "gun control" legislation.
• I'll support repeal of all existing "gun control" legislation.
• I'll forbid any department or employee of the executive branch to enforce existing "gun control" laws and, as with other issues of constitutional import, I'll order the Solicitor General of the United States to defend my administration in court against any attempt to force it to violate your rights.
• Finally, I'll direct the Civil Rights Enforcement division of the US Department of Justice to vigorously prosecute cases of violation of the right to keep and bear arms by any official at any level of government.